Fun

The last few weeks in second life have been nothing but complex and busy on my end, reopening my home club, moving my family to a new sim and moving my flagship store to a more cost effective space, have been among the many things that have kept my attention.

I recently applied to be one of the DJs to entertain the crowds during the SL10 celebrations and I was nothing but surprised when I was contacted to be a part of the events. Most of what I do in the platform, I do for the fun of it. I design. and sell my products when I have time and I get pleasure out of what I'm designing or doing; if I get none of that it simply gets postponed to when I feel in the mood.

Same goes with DJing and clubbing in SL, something that many in my opinion tend to take far too seriously. As a club owner I have seen and dealt with pretty much anything you can think of, but something I never tolerate is bullying of any kind or humoring power trips from anyone in charge.

Some may say I am a difficult DJ to deal with, but that is not necessarily true -to an extent- as my demands are usually quite simple; I don't care how awesome you think you and your club are, I could care less if Senator Linden himself came and became your buddy or how much "control" you seem to be under the delusion paying me for my services gives you -I never ask for payment for my services, but if you choose to pay me on top of tips, I'll accept that as tips, the minute me, my time and that of my groupies, VIPs and followers seems to be wasted and is no longer fun for me or them, I'll take my things and leave off to better things.

Anything I do, I do for fun as I am investing my free time to do something I love and am limited on doing in RL, I certainly do not log in to stroke anyone's ego, not even my own; in the end I'd like to believe that the fact I do this for the fun of it reflects on the general result, if you are a DJ or club owner that does this for profit and are only worried about the sole fact, my best wishes for you and your projects, but I refuse to spend my time with bullies and money whores, there's a thing called RL for that.

Do it for fun... you'll see how the outcome turns out to be a lot different.

https://www.facebook.com/spikecls

Tipjar unity

There are many things in SL that are somewhat sacred for a DJ, their tipjar being one of them, some build them themselves, others go for a fancy one that sends group invites freebies and the likes to the delight of the groupies and patrons that come to listen to you DJ.

Sometimes keeping your beloved tipjar around is not an option as some clubs resort to networked ones to keep lag to a minimum, this being the case of many clubs where a cut or not is discussed previously with the Djs -Most DJs I know and that pride themselves for being good won't go for a cut of their tips, that's unthinkable considering you have to pay for the stream and such-

Well, recently I was offered a partnership with "The Unity Club" and given my previous horrid experience with the last owner I decided to get my feet wet there with a set a week and see how things were functioning now, with the new management and all.

Things went somewhat smoothly for a couple of weeks until the manager Gai thor (he goes for Thordin now) started pushing their personalised tipjars down my throat, in order to -and I quote- "keep an uniform look", when I refused point blank on the last set ever I ever did there, he added he'd look for people who would be team players, when I simply stated that it was me and my tipjar, or no DJ.

There are many reasons why a DJ will refuse to part from their tipjar - make a list of those who won't work if there's not also payment on top of tips involved and then check it twice see how many names you get-, paycut or not and it's smart managing to humour the DJ to a point, specially if it's their traffic bringing business to your venue.

https://www.facebook.com/spikecls

I got the POWER

What is power? what gives or takes power and why do people in Second life thirst and look for it as if their lives depended on it?; power can be defined as the ability to shape, form and decide on people's lives and their future.

With so many responsibility implied on such task, one wonders why is it so alluring, I guess it could be the fact that most people use second life to compensate on those things they lack, and power does have some erotica involved on it.

Over the last 24 hours, I have been exposed to all sorts of funny power trips coming at me from the strangest sources -and even some very predictable ones- but I think the one worth highlighting would be a guy who recently hosted for me and god knows why, decided to take upon himself the pro-bono duties of staff management -I already have people doing that but oh well-, so I get to the club, notices are not being sent, contest board has not been set-up and to top it all he's verbally abusing people on staff chat.

What got into him I'll always ask myself, but I did the reasonable thing, apologized on staff chat, and did the hosting until I could get a replacement while he was at the club. Fine line here, focus on the job you have been hired to do and WHEN you have spare time and feel that you have valuable input that could make staff management work better, address the appropriate people in private.

Then there are the club owners who have a few "special" people that have achieved the status of untouchable and feel it is their call to get involved in staff romance-drama, while sacrificing good valuable staff that will not come back to your club for the afore mentioned issues. One thing I have never done -and have been accused of being heartless and impassive- is getting involved in drama among staff, that does not DIRECTLY involved work as a whole.

I guess some people just have the need of showing how big their muscle is, but personally, I'll stick to what I'm doing and how I'm doing it, seems to be going well so far.

https://www.facebook.com/spikecls

Boys just wanna have fun

Social platforms are by simple concept a distraction from your real life issues which help you socialize with others you would be unable to under different circumstances, but people being complex, fun is never alone and some drama will be entertained for a number of reasons, Sometimes however, you will be the target of some who simply cannot get away from the shadow your ass produces.

This also applies to real life, it can be that you have nicer hair, a faster car, a nicer family, a killer body, a successful business, any excuse is valid to make you the target or even try to replicate anything that you have going and which they think can do best -and by consequence getting you out of the picture-.

When it comes to SL clubs, much like those businesses in RL, the ones that stand the test of time are those who follow an original formula and which stick to a simple set of rules which make people want to work there and patrons feel at ease -to have fun in the simplest of concepts-.

Sadly, the fun concept doesn't seem to quite sink in, but bear in mind that people already have enough issues on their day to day to add on top of that the ones you gratuitously create on a virtual platform, no matter how much money you have invested in the business. One of my bests hosts and staff manager in our SL club -and a good one if I may add- had the bad idea to join the ranks of a person whose idea of a venue seems to revolve around copying what others do, making the club look like the others he has visited, to later make staff responsible through bullying, of his own inability to keep a fun and attractive club functioning.

With that in mind, and not wanting to name names, I'll simply add a word of advice: more bears are attracted to a single spot with honey than with vinegar, specially if they have to be under the sun...

https://www.facebook.com/spikecls